tractor life span?

[Anonymous Poster]

I am wondering what the realistic life span of a compact tractor is.

I had a Ford 1520 with 1,325 hours of pretty hard use, before the rear end went and required about $2,000.00 in repair. I always kept up on the maintenance and changed oil religiously at every 50 hours.

Since moving and acquiring more property, ( I mow about 8 acres, and have another 10 acres in woods.) I was considering on moving up and as fate would have it, my 1520 broke down during peak season. This and some other factors, forced me to make some uninformed decisions that normally I would have researched.

I purchased a new NH TC35D with 16LA FEL and HD bucket for $19,500.00. They also gave me @$7,200 minus the $2,000.00 repair cost for my 1520.

Although it is after the fact, I was just wondering how I did overall. I was also wondering if the failure at 1325 hours was typical or not. Since that was my first tractor, I don’t have any background to draw from, but from reading a lot of these discussions, I know a lot of you do!! Would appreciate any feedback. Thanks

 

[s1120]

1325 seems short. One of my Ingersoll garden tractors has 1600. Could have been just one of those things.

 

[Thomas]

I think you kinda answer your own question.."pretty hard use".

I agree..tractor shouldn't be baby to the point of being scare of a scratch,but one should ask the tractor to go be on its limits time after time.
I kinda look at this way...treat your tractor right and it will treat you right.

Sounds like you did okay towards your new NH.

 

[ecard]

This raises a good question. I go to auctions all the time and I see big ag tractors with 4000+ hours. Does anyone have an idea what the average number of hours that a tractor will last before overhaul?

I could guess that a newer high hour tractor would be synonymous as a truck with a lot of highway miles.

When I see anything at 1000+ hours I wonder how long it will last - kind of like the 100,000 mile barrier on a vehicle.

Eric

 

[rancar]

Eric --

Farmers I speak to in my area say a good tractor with care and maintenance should give you 4,000-5,000 hours before overhaul. Don't know about CUTs, but my guess is life span should be a bit longer than 1,300 hours.

 

[Youare]

I hope to get several thousand hours out of my tractor before it needs major work. I heard somewhere that every 100 hours is equal to a number of miles you would put on a car or truck, but I don't remember what that figure is.

I would rather take an hour longer to accomplish a task with my tractor than to ask it to perform beyond it's capacity. The same is true for my body these days, I used to see how much I could get done in the shortest time. Now I have some body damage associated with that abuse.

Use it but don't abuse it./w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif

Randy

 

[Mrwurm]

My John Deere 650 has 2500 hours on it and it still starts and runs great. Everything works and it still looks pretty good too. I have recently been getting trade-in appraisals on it from several dealers. Two dealers told me that 2500 hours is the turning point when a tractor starts to lose value more rapidly. Ok, it could be 'sales hype', but that's what they told me.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

<font color=blue>...Two dealers told me that 2500 hours is the turning point ...</font color=blue>

I'd wait til 3000 hours and go back to see if 3000 hours is the turning point for trade-in.../w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

 

[PaulinSD]

I've got 6000+ hours on my '86 JD 1050. I've seen many pieces of heavy equipment with over 10,000 hours before needing an overhaul. There is also a great many Ford N series (2,8 & 9) tractors with countless hours still running. When we traded our 8-N in on a Ford 3000, it had been overhauled just once in its life. It was a 1954 model, and traded in 1992. I'd like to think anything with only a 1000 hours on it is just broke in.

Paul

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

If you put an hour meter on a car, I would bet that few 100,000 mile cars would have less than 3000 hours engine running time on them.
We have a John Deere 2240 with 5000 plus and a 950 with about 4000, with no engine overhauls and varying quality maintenance. I would be disappointed at anything properly maintained that didn't last at least 5000.